According to Fiji Times Online, the new leg will ensure additional connectivity from mainland USA via Honolulu and various other points which Continental Micronesia services through its Guam hub.

Aside from saying that the new arrangement would generate significant benefit to Fiji's tourism industry, Tourism Fiji chairman Patrick Wong tells the Times:

"Continental Micronesia's service will not only provide connectivity from eight Japanese cities for Japanese outbound travel, but also provide connectivity from major American economic centers like New York, Houston and Los Angeles to Fiji via connection at Honolulu."

The US government was on the verge of threatening Fiji and possibly going after some Air Pacific rights due to their seemingly reluctance to accede to CO's application including even questioning legal status of Guam vis-a-vis the United States and applicability of US-Fiji traffic rights.

That's great news. I wonder when the skeds will come out. I think we'll see something like a 8pm GUM-NAN, 0600 NAN-HNL, turning to a late afternoon HNL-NAN, midnight NAN-GUM. Since the aircraft appears to be turning around at HNL, the connects could be on the long side in both directions at HNL.
What might work better is if LAX-HNL went to a 738, where it could go thru to NAN about the same time flight 1 leaves to GUM and the HNL arrival coming in about 5 pm going through to LAX. Of course that would rotate a currently non-Micronesia 738 HNL-LAX-HNL.
Could the 739ER be heading to Micronesia? It's scheduled for LAX-HNL for at least a couple months this summer. Question is whether the 739ER would work well in Micronesia as it has the same engines as the 738, requiring more runway when carrying a heavier MGTOW.

The 730ER could operate most routes in the CMI System easily. There could be problems with the Island Hopper, as the runway at TKK is 6000 feet long and the runway at KSA is 5750 feet long. Another CMI airport with a short runway is YAP, also 6000 feet long.

These flights are could be a nightmare for Crew Scheduling. Still air flight time is about 6 hours from GUM-NAN and NAN-HNL, which would theoretically allow a 3 man crew to do it, but I don't think the FAA would buy off on 6 hr block when Air Pacific is using 6:45 for HNL-NAN. Twice weekly flights will mean 80 hour layovers in NAN, which is not very productive or positioning crews on Air Pacific which operates HNL-NAN on Fridays and Sundays. Alternatively, I suppose they could use 2 IROs, for over 12 hours flight time and a 5th Flight Attendant (provision for CMI FA duty day over 12 hours) and just operate all the way through.

it seems bizarre that the Fijian 'government' took so long to approve this, they should have welcomed this service with open arms , bearing in mind that Fiji's tourism industry is struggling and that this service offers a double boost to the inbound market ( the GUM-NAN leg can bring in tourists from a number of Japanese points - something that has been missing for the Fiji market since FJ pulled their NRT services and the NAN-HNL can bring in pax from the CO mainline nextwork in the US ) . On the other hand , given the ongoing instability in Fiji it is possible that the ever-cautious Japanese will continue to give Fiji a miss .

Does anyone have any thoughts on how well or otherwise this service will do ?

on the plus side

CO has , through its 40 plus years of Air Mike/Continental Micronesia , substantial experience in 'island-hopping' routes and presumably knows a thing or two about the viability of such services .

CO ( Mike ) has a track record in the Japanese market .

CO mainline has flights into HNL from their two principal hubs EWR and IAH , as well as fom LAX , so feeding 2 narrowbodies per week for the HNL-NAN sector wouldnt seem too much of a challenge .

Once CO become *A members I guess that they will get additional feed into the GUM hub from both OZ and NH ( any other *A members operating into GUM ? )

2 narrowbodies per week on both sectors does not represent a huge investment for an airline the size of CO

on the negative side

uncertain time to be starting a new route

I doubt if there is a lot of O&D between GUM-NAN so it will probably have to rely on funneling traffic through the GUM hub - although CO has a lot of experience with relatively long narrowbody ops I wonder how pax will respond to say a 3-4 hour narrowbody flight from Japan to GUM followed by a 6(ish?) hour narrowbody flight to NAN .

the 'situation' ( can I say that ?) in Fiji is currently very unstable and there are a lot of competing destinations in the Pacific which can offer sun , sand and sea but no 'situations'.

Quoting PA515 (Reply 9):On a previous thread someone mentioned the fact that substantial numbers of US forces and families were repositioning to Guam from Japan, so would be looking at mainly selling to this market.

That was the pitch to increase GUM-CNS flights. GUM-NAN is aimed more at picking up the traffic on NRT-NAN since Air Pacific dropped the route.

DL/NW are stepping up service next month by adding a daily 767 and 332 service on NRT-GUM. That's on top of what they already have, existing 757 service to NRT, NGO and KIX. CS is still operating 2 767s and one 738 daily.

Quoting Kiwiandrew (Reply 6):I doubt if there is a lot of O&D between GUM-NAN so it will probably have to rely on funneling traffic through the GUM hub - although CO has a lot of experience with relatively long narrowbody ops I wonder how pax will respond to say a 3-4 hour narrowbody flight from Japan to GUM followed by a 6(ish?) hour narrowbody flight to NAN .

Passengers transited through GUM to make connections to CNS, DPS and NOU before. Even those coming from HNL had to endure additional time in the air to other places like HKG, ICN and TPE. It's tough but the only other alternatives would be flying nonstop to HNL or SYD to make it there and that's more backtracking than flying from here.

You can take the boy out of the island, but not the island out of the boy!